Before the era of 24-hour news, one man wired a shotgun to his own neck and held the nation hostage. Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire turns that unbelievable true story into a slow burn of panic and empathy, painting a portrait of a man consumed by injustice, and a country unable to look away. Led by Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery, the film captures both the absurdity and the tragedy of a crime broadcast live before anyone knew what “viral” meant.

Based on the real 1977 Indianapolis standoff between Tony Kiritsis and mortgage executive Richard Hall, the film transforms an event that was once a televised oddity into something human and harrowing. Written by Austin Kolodney and directed by Van Sant, Dead Man’s Wire also stars Cary Elwes, Myha’la, and Colman Domingo. As part of Collider’s Exclusive Preview event, Maggie Lovitt spoke with Kolodney about the story’s origins, his writing process, and why Van Sant was always his first choice to direct.

“How Has This Not Been Made Into a Movie Yet?”

Bill Skarsgård holding Dacre Montgomery at gunpoint in Dead Man's WireImage via Row K. Entertainment

Kolodney first heard the name Tony Kiritsis during the pandemic.

“I heard on a podcast the name Tony Kiritsis and the crime of taking Richard Hall hostage by regaining a sawed-off shock onto his head. I stumbled onto a YouTube clip that basically showed many of the key events. Them marching down the street, and Tony cracking jokes at the cops, slipping on the ice, stealing a cop car, and then holding a press conference in front of all of Indianapolis. … I just said out loud while watching it, ‘How has this not been made into a movie yet?’”

That moment set the project in motion. “I started pitching it with my manager that year just to see if someone would want to pay me to write it, and then just wrote it on spec,” he explains. Kolodney reached out to Indianapolis historians Alan Berry and Mark Enochs, who shared a 16-gig research file filled with photos, transcripts, and debriefs. “It was a treasure trove,” he says. “You could probably write a whole compendium or multi-season thing about this era in Indianapolis. But to me, the interesting version was the Dog Day Afternoon, Uncut Gems version that just opens with Tony arriving with that shotgun and getting right into the meat and potatoes of the hostage event.”

Why Gus Van Sant Was the Only Choice

Kolodney knew from the beginning who he wanted in the director’s chair. “He has such a storied career,” he says of Van Sant. “He feels Sidney Lumet-esque in that he’s an auteur, a brilliant storyteller and artist, but also able to reach a broad audience and make something that’s universally loved by a lot of different types of people.”

“That’s the mark of a really interesting filmmaker is you’re able to work within different genres… he’s not confined to any given space. He always does harken back to certain themes and the outsider type of characters that’s in a lot of his films, so that was also a part of it, and just his obsession with media frenzy and dark comedy. Obviously, I look at To Die For, Drugstore Cowboy, that’s all in there.”

Kolodney also trusted Van Sant’s respect for history. “I thought he would take the research that I had done seriously and not want to change things too much,” he says. “I am a history buff as well, and I wanted to stick true to the themes and the essence of what happened in ’77, but still adapt it just enough to work for modern audiences when they go to the theaters and hopefully see our movie.”

Dead Man’s Wire premieres in theaters January 9, 2026. Stay tuned for more from Collider’s Winter Exclusive Preview event coverage, spanning the most exciting television and film releases in the coming months.